


Did Venus Blow Your Mind? (Was it everything you wanted?)

by selflessbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellamy is a sweetheart (duh), Body Paint, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mild Sexual Content, Resolved Sexual Tension, artist!Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selflessbellamy/pseuds/selflessbellamy
Summary: Clarke wants to sign up for a body-paint contest but she needs someone to try some designs. Fortunately, she got a best friend who might be a good canvas.The fact he has a body of a Greek God is irrelevant, at least that's what she keeps telling herself...





	Did Venus Blow Your Mind? (Was it everything you wanted?)

It’s not like she hasn’t used his body as a canvas before. Ever since they were six years old, two kids climbing trees and drowning in ball pits, Bellamy Blake has been lucky enough to carry the inked work of Clarke Griffin on his skin at least once a month. Of course, her art was amateurish at first, a sloppy dragon or a childish depiction of the sun, but it never mattered to him. Back then his friends used to tease him about it (especially if the drawing happened to be a heart), but now that her work actually resembles real tattoos, with shadows and details, everyone admires them. Still, Clarke will never forget that  _ he  _ liked her work before it even became worth looking at. 

“That’s what best friends are for,” Bellamy states, a smile growing on his face as he grants her a sip of the milky coffee that she’s been eyeing in envy for five minutes now. She’s just told him about the body painting competition that’s being held in Miami in a couple of months. If you’ve known Clarke Griffin for as long as he has, then you know that she’s an explorer, always on the lookout for new challenges. 

“So you’ll do it? You don’t have to,” she beams before glancing at his coffee again. Rolling his eyes affectionately, Bellamy relents and hands her the cup. When she tries to give it back, he erupts in laughter, shaking his head. 

“I’m guessing it won’t be any different from what I’ve been subjected to for years, Princess,” he teases, but she stays silent, which causes the familiar crease to form between his brows. After hesitating, Clarke manages a smile.

Then she admits, “Well. Body painting is...  _ slightly  _ different from your usual experience as a living canvas, Bell.”

A few seconds pass in silence before he realizes what she’s hinting at, but when he does his eyes widen a little and he has to clear his throat to gather himself. Despite this, Clarke swears that she sees a faint pink color rise to his cheeks. As he runs his fingers through the back of his jet-black hair, he offers her a crooked smile. “Uh… Sure, wow. Okay—”

“You’ll still be wearing underwear. It’s not like I haven’t seen you in less—“

“Yeah, when we were _ six _ , Clarke.”

As a child, you’re fearless when it comes to nudity. You haven’t been exposed to the harmful beauty ideals of society, and you certainly haven’t discovered what sex is. Not that she and Bellamy have ever thought about each other like  _ that.  _ Of course not… That’s the main reason why this shouldn’t be a problem, but she would still understand if he chose to back out. 

But he doesn’t. 

Instead, he asks her, “What are you planning on doing?” 

At his interest, she can’t help but exhale in relief, her heart leaping and swelling in her chest out of appreciation for him. With a huge smile on her face, she informs him that there’s a creative part of the competition, which is the one she wants to participate in, citing that it’s more  _ fun  _ than simply trying to replicate real clothes. “I wanna do something inspired by the universe: Galaxies, nebulas and stuff. Since I’m the artist and you’re the canvas, I figured I’d do something that we both love.”

Frankly, Bellamy and Clarke love many of the same things, but they’ve always shared adoration for the shining stars and the lonely planets. It reminds them that some things are endless.

To her happiness, her best friend expresses his excitement by throwing both of his hands into the air, announcing, “You’re so fucking cool, Griffin.”

“Is that right?” She muses, kicking her legs a little from her place on the kitchen counter. Even though Aurora Blake’s apartment is a lot smaller than the house that she grew up in, Clarke feels at home here. No matter how dire life seemed to be for the single mother, she always had enough energy and kindness to let his son’s best friend stay over. Now, with the help of Abby Griffin and Marcus Kane, she has a better job that doesn’t break her bones on a daily basis. 

“Yeah, that’s right.”

The softness of his words causes her to gaze at him as he walks towards her, placing his hands on her knees. Resting his forehead against hers, their noses graze and the space between them dissolves into almost nothing until she can count the bronze stars across his cheeks. 

_ So cool… _

“Well, you’re fucking awesome.”

He only hums, the smile stretching the corners of his lips even further apart. For a second, Clarke lets her eyelids flutter shut, so the intimacy of this moment can swallow her whole. She won’t mind, and he probably won’t either… It’s just who they are. 

No need for explanations.

Pulling back, Clarke looks at him for a moment before lifting his hand to inspect it, study every single line and crevice that she can fit constellations into. “You’re really okay with this?”

Bellamy smiles at her. “Just go get your paint, Princess.”   
  


To her surprise, he’s already shirtless when she reemerges from her room carrying the body paint. For a moment, the sight causes her to stop dead in her tracks, her eyes looming over his chest as if they were pulled to by a strong magnet. As always, she gathers herself and walks to him, meeting the amused sparks in his eyes when his feet shift on the plastic that protects the floor. “I think I’m gonna do your back first, so if you could just…” 

Getting the memo, Bellamy grins at her one last time before turning around, allowing her full view of the toned muscles that surround his spine. “This is the perfect place for a nebula,” she remarks, biting her lower lip. 

At first, she paints everything over with black, and while they wait for it to dry, Bellamy tells her about the football game that he’s playing tomorrow. He’s a quarterback for the UCLA Bruins, which he is  _ perfectly  _ built for (that’s her artistic observation). For the most part, sports do not interest Clarke the slightest, but during Bellamy’s games, you’ll be sure to find her somewhere in the bleachers, cheering for him. 

The nebula that grazes Bellamy’s skin after an hour is multicolored and extremely realistic. It almost looks as if it’s in motion. When she’s pleased with the result, she finds a small brush to add the stars around and inside it. Usually, he never stops talking while she’s drawing something on his skin, but this time is different, as the only sounds that emerge from his lips are sharp intakes of breath every once in a while.

Clarke doesn’t know why, just as she doesn’t know why she suddenly can’t battle the urge to press her lips against his broad shoulder. Only when he breathes her name does she pull away, a blush creeping into her cheeks. “… It was the brush.”

At that lie, he hums, reaching back to grab her free hand. The touch is so soft that it pulls at her heartstrings, causing it to swell in her chest. “…Bell, I have to finish this.”

But he doesn’t let go. “So finish it.”

After another ten stars, she finally puts down the brush, fully satisfied with the final result as she tells herself that it’s nothing more than excitement over the art that has her heart leaping in her chest. When Bellamy has turned around, she shows him the picture that she took with her phone, and he praises her work to the skies as always. “You’re so damn talented, Clarke. This is amazing. But I think something’s missing.”

For a moment, Clarke’s brow furrows in confusion, but then Bellamy holds her chin, smearing some black paint onto her jawline using his thumb. She squeals, a light-hearted version of a battle cry and places her hand on his chest, causing him to step in a spot of black paint on the plastic sheet. 

“Okay, this is  _ war  _ now, Princess!” He chuckles, hopelessly trying to shake the paint off his foot. 

Because he has the unfair advantage of incredible physical strength, Bellamy simply wraps an arm around her waist and picks her up, all but throwing her over his shoulder. Like that, he spins around in circles, which has laughter bubbling in her stomach. Despite the joy, she feels her entire face heat up. She’s never been skin-to-skin with him like this before, her t-shirt and camisole hiked up enough that their bare stomachs are touching, which she is oh-so-aware of.  _ Shit… _

He puts her down, but his hand remains on her back to steady her. Breathless from laughing, Clarke gazes up at him, her lips parting around a chuckle. “You’re infuriating, Bellamy Blake.”

“Oh really?” 

With that rhetorical question, he takes another step forward, slowly crushing the space between them. At this short distance, Clarke’s struck by the growing intimacy: Him standing there in front of her in nothing except his pants and body paint. Glancing at his mouth, the spark in the pit of her stomach flickers like a candle in the night, hitting her with a realization… It feels like a brick to the face, which is why she almost flinches, wetting her lips.

“I think cyan would suit you. It’d match your pretty eyes.”

“… Did you just call my eyes pretty?” Is what she asks, dumbstruck enough that she doesn’t even fight back when Bellamy drags a stripe of cyan paint along her cheekbone.

Yet he only chuckles, pulling her closer, which steals the breath from her lungs. When he smiles, it’s softer than usual. “Yeah…  _ You’re _ pretty, Clarke. You’re beautiful.” 

_ How dare he say something like that?  _ How dare he utter words that make her incapable of thinking clearly, that make her want to do things that she definitely shouldn’t? At this point, he’s fucking asking to be kissed, so she presses her hands to his shoulders, slowly pushing herself up on her tiptoes, but when it comes to taking the last inch between their faces, she can’t. 

Instead, their breaths mingle like flames that dance around each other. In the end, it’s Bellamy who gives in first, brushing his full, warm lips against hers. It’s barely even a peck, but it still sparks memories at the back of her mind. 

_ This is not the only time their lips have met.  _

Their first encounter was beneath an old oak tree in the Griffin family’s backyard when she was six and he was seven. She’d dared him to do it, convinced that his courage wasn’t great enough to carry him through that. However, she was proved wrong, and when his lips grazed hers in the most innocent manner, she squealed his name in disbelief before she chased him around the garden, her cheeks tomato-red. 

The _ second _ meeting was during a fairly harmless game of spin-the-bottle when they were fourteen. At first, Bellamy flat-out refused, mostly due to the nerves prickling like thorns underneath his skin and his heart that was beating a tattoo against his ribcage. Shifting a little closer, Clarke granted him permission despite her own obvious nervousness, glancing at their mutual friends who formed a circle around them. This time was unlike the first in many ways, less innocent and surprisingly deep. When he pulled back his brown, freckled cheeks were dressed in a pinkish veil. Upon gazing into his eyes for a second, Clarke placed her hand on the back of his neck to kiss him again, though it was brief, a consolation… Reassuring.

_ (“Was that okay?” He murmured against her lips, hoping no else could hear.  _

_ “Yeah… I liked it a lot.”)  _

Now, they’re twenty, and she’s not going to let the opportunity slip through her fingers. 

“ _ Bellamy… _ ” With that, she buries her hand in the unruly curls of his hair, which has him holding her tighter.

When she captures his lips with her own, he leans down to meet the kiss vigorously, releasing a long-held breath into her mouth. She sighs in relief, cataloguing the movements of his mouth against hers so that she can keep them safe in her memory forever. Like the sun, he lets his warmth seep into her skin with every touch, his fingertips splaying against her spine keeping her flush against him. 

Just as she thinks it’s about to be over, sensing him draw back slightly, her heart grows heavier in her chest, yet Bellamy only moves away to lift her off the ground, holding her by her thighs.  _ Fuck, he’s so strong. Godlike…  _

As if it were an instinct, Clarke wraps her legs around his waist, listening to how he groans low in his throat at the contact. They’re entering dangerous territory, an ocean of flames, but for some reason they couldn’t care less if they burn up. At least they’ll burn up from  _ this. _

He’s the boy who told her stories about the Olympians until morning light, the boy who brings her chocolate every time she starts her period, the boy who watched her dance around in her underwear to ‘Drops of Jupiter’ and called her beautiful when she looked back at him. 

“Sit down,” she murmurs against his parted lips, and he obeys instantly, lowering himself to the couch cushions while still holding onto her. In his lap, she has more control, letting her mouth roam the skin of his neck, sucking at his pulse point until a strangled groan escapes the cage of his mouth. Pulling back, Clarke looks at the non-permanent tattoo that she drew just beneath his collarbone a few days ago: _a wolf howling_ _in front of the full moon._

Noticing where her gaze has gone to, he tells her, “I was thinking about having that one inked. Officially.”

She just stares at him in awe for a minute, not quite sure what to say. Her lips are bruised from kissing, her heart racing in her chest, and all that she knows is that she doesn’t want this moment to end. Burying her hand in the dark curls of his hair once more, Clarke tugs a little at it. When his lips part further, she takes it is a good sign and starts to roll her hips experimentally, watching his Adam’s apple bob as she grinds against him, keeping her hands on his bare chest. 

Bellamy presses the pad of his thumb to her bottom lip, which causes her to look at him. Now, she notices that his gaze has darkened and his brow has furrowed, but his lips are battling a smile. “Are you trying to turn me on, Princess?”

“What? Isn’t it working?” Her words are coated in smugness. She knows that it’s working — she can  _ feel  _ that it is, but he’s still trying to play it cool. In many ways, this reminds her of the boy who used to grit his teeth through the pain whenever he got hurt on the playground, always trying to keep his pride intact. 

He gulps, his hands enclosing her waist and fingertips digging into her pelvic bone. “You’re my best friend, Clarke.”

Obviously, she knows that the statement is an attempt to convince himself that there are a million reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this right now. Arching an eyebrow, Clarke decides to argue with a statement of her own. “We’ve kissed before.”

He blinks, staring at her. “… Well—“

“We’ve watched porn together.”

“Once!”

At that, she rolls her eyes, managing a smile as she climbs out of his lap. When she’s standing, she intentionally allows her gaze to linger at his crotch before it travels to his face. For a moment, it seems as if he’s unaffected by it, but then he groans out loud, reaching out to pull her back into his lap. “Sometimes I wish you didn’t know me so well,” he exhales against the column of her neck, his hot breath creating goosebumps along the sensitive skin there. With one hand, he cups her cheek, resting his forehead against hers. “I really don’t want to lose you, but…  _ fuck. _ ”

His other hand, upon slipping underneath the fabric of her t-shirt, discovers that she’s not wearing a bra, just a thin lace camisole. “You’re not gonna lose me.”

With that promise, Clarke pulls off the t-shirt, throwing it carelessly to the floor. For at least a full minute, he gazes into her ocean eyes before finally daring to look at her breasts, swallowing hard. “I feel like I’m stuck in one of those sex dreams I was so ashamed of having when I was sixteen.”

_ Yeah… _ Fantasizing about your best friend is the most confusing thing. You know you’re not supposed to want them or think about them in that way, and yet you can’t control which roads your mind leads you down while you’re asleep. Or in the shower… Or in their room.

“There’s no reason to be ashamed,” biting her lip, Clarke hesitates briefly before admitting, “I’ve thought about you, too. A lot, actually…” 

When she lowers her gaze, suddenly more vulnerable, Bellamy reacts by places a lingering kiss to her forehead, then one to the corner of her mouth as he moves her hair behind her ear. There are plenty more confessions to make, but she’ll save them for another day. She has them hidden in her bedside table drawer (an unopened box of condoms with his name written in invisible ink on it) and in her private sketchbook (countless drawings of her deepest, most intense fantasies — ones that leave her exposed to the bone).

“Look, Clarke. I’ve loved you my entire life, but I don’t want to rush into this despite how many years I’ve wanted it, so…”

As always, she’s able to finish her sentence for him. “… I should finish my painting and we can discuss the  _ sex thing  _ another time.”

He nods, smiling, and even though she’s not really disappointed, Bellamy kisses her breast; an unspoken promise, before he lets her resume the body painting practice. For the most part, Clarke succeeds at getting back into  _ artist mode  _ despite everything that just happened _ ,  _ painting his chest in more stars and smaller nebulas. Still, she can’t resist running her hand up his abs.

“Focus, Clarke,” he teases, smirking, which only earns him a brush of white body paint to the tip of his nose. 

“It’s a little hard when you have the body of a Greek god.” 

“Thank you. You’re hot, too,” is what he chuckles. 

It’s amazing how easily the truths fall of their lips now that they’ve finally found the courage to go further. It took  _ years _ , but it feels as if the windows to their souls have been left open, so that sunlight can pour in… 

 

Two months pass before they’re completely comfortable with the new, sexual aspect of their relationship. Having momentarily forgotten about the how  _ intense  _ things had gotten in Clarke’s bedroom last night, Bellamy pulls off his shirt in the college locker room after training, unintentionally revealing the scratches across his back and the hickeys on his chest. When his teammate, John Mbege, whistles at the sight, Bellamy rolls his eyes. 

“Dude, you’re fucking branded. You’re getting laid now?”

At the question, Bellamy shoots him a glare that speaks for itself:  _ None of your damn business.  _ Being the team captain has — for the most part — given him enough power to end the “locker room talk” in here, as he’s able to make them shut up by growling when they dare to mention a sexual encounter. (“We play sports — we don’t objectify women.”)

Still, Mbege just  _ has  _ to play with fire, throwing out an insinuation, “I bet it’s that hot blonde you’re always hanging around.” 

Bellamy’s eyes narrow, his fists clenching along his sides, and when he speaks, his voice is filled with cold intimidation, “You want your ass kicked off this team? Because it sure sounds like it right now.” When he was younger, he used his physical strength as a defense mechanism, but now he knows better, even though the impulse is still there, creating the temptation of punching Mbege in the face for reducing Clarke to the word ‘hot’.

Satisfied that his threat seems to shut Mbege up, Bellamy puts on a fresh, white t-shirt and applies some cologne ( _ her _ favorite scent of his) for good measure, then goes to meet her by her car in the parking lot. 

She wastes no time at all, pulling him against her to kiss him hotly as soon as she has the chance, her teeth grazing his lower lip. “My man. Always a damn masterpiece,” she murmurs, curling her hand around his bicep. Grinning at her, Bellamy leans in again, capturing her lips, and they make out like that for a minute, laughing together once they break apart. 

“You want some ice cream?” 

“Oh, I thought you’d never ask,” she replies. “I’m about to fucking melt.”

Because they’re both avid ice cream lovers, Bellamy and Clarke have a tradition when it comes to picking out flavors. They choose a combination for  _ each other _ , hoping that it results in a tasty surprise. This time, Bellamy’s picked out ‘Strawberry shortcake’ and ‘Orange Juice’ for her, which is nothing short of heavenly. 

“You know, I submitted the pictures for the body painting competition a couple of days ago. They mailed me today. We’ve qualified!” Clarke announces happily, causing Bellamy to beam at her, a pink plastic spoon hovering by his lips. Then he gives a high five, and they sit for a few minutes in comfortable silence afterwards while they finish their cold refreshments.

But she has to ask, once they’re walking down the street towards their favorite spot in the park, “Have you told the guys about me?”

“No,” he admits instantly, causing her to frown until he explains, “They’ll just see you as my conquest, and you’re so much more than that, Clarke.”

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but somehow hearing him say it makes her heart swell. Unsure of what else to do, Clarke simply wraps her arms around his middle, placing her cheek against his chest. He caresses the back of his head, then whispers, “I know we haven’t actually made it official yet, Clarke, but you’re my girlfriend. My best friend, too… and I love you.”

At that, she looks at him, smiling brightly enough to make the sun envious. “And I love you.”

 

_ Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken? _

_ Your best friend always sticking up for you even when I know you're wrong _

_ Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance, five-hour phone conversation? _

_ The best soy latte that you ever had and me _

 

_ \- Train _


End file.
